Carpet installers and others who spend time on their knees subject the toes of their shoes or boots to tremendous wear. The shoe toe typically wears through long before the remainder of the shoe reaches the end of its service life.
Carpet installers often purchase inexpensive shoes such as sneakers in an effort to economize because of their shoes' short life spans. Such shoes often lack the support and protection found in more expensive and substantial shoes, however, and they expose the installers' feet to unnecessary abuse.
Carpet installers also require shoe toes which provide them traction and stability on the carpet being installed or removed. For example, carpet installers often use a kicker bar when securing carpet to tacking strips. A kicker bar includes a head from whose bottom protrude forward slanting spikes or nails which grab the carpet. The head is secured by a longitudinal handle to a rear knee block. The carpet installer supports and stabilizes himself with the knee and toe of one leg and with his opposite arm which forces the head of the kicker bar into the carpet. He then kicks the knee block of the kicker bar repeatedly with his free leg to force the carpet taut across the room and onto angle nails of the tacking strips which hold the carpet in place. The toe of the stabilizing leg must therefore have a secure purchase on the carpet so that the installer does not slide or move as he kicks the kicker bar. Similarly, an installer pulling carpet from the floor depends on his shoe toes to keep him from sliding on the carpet as he exerts force against the carpet he is removing.
Carpet installers' shoes also suffer abuse from another source; adhesive and other chemicals utilized in carpet laying and removing operations add to the wear and tear of carpet installers' shoes.